Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I too want to thank each and every one of you for your service and for being part of this study, which I hope will be one of those studies that can actually, perhaps, make a change in VAC.
I've been on this committee a fairly short time; I'm one of the newbies. I'm consistently hearing extremely terrible stories about the service.
I want to commend you on your comment about how they would do if they were a private enterprise.
I can tell you that I get calls constantly in my office from frustrated veterans. I think you hit the nail on the head. Many are inquiring, “How do we go through the system after it's done?” They can't navigate the process. The system is broken. In fact, I had one fellow who was one of the individuals offered MAID at one particular moment in time. His frustration....
Then there's the frustration of not being able to get hold of anyone. It seems that the only time the government wants to get hold of anyone is when that person owes taxes. Other than that, we have people who are in need.
My question for Dr. Rochford and for you is this: We hear about this system and how terrible it is. What can we do, and why isn't there co-operation to change it when we're hearing it consistently over and over?